In the past B2B marketers have mostly viewed B2C loyalty and reward programmes as irrelevant, determining instead that businesses won’t respond - and in any case customer retention is the responsibility of those in sales, service and support.

However, B2B marketers are now under increasing pressure to interact with customers and to deepen relationships in order to retain their valuable existing customer base. After all, developing an existing customer is more valuable than acquiring a new one, by a factor of up to 10.

Customer loyalty ultimately boils down to the value a business delivers over time and at the heart of customer retention is engagement. An organisation’s ability to maintain a customer’s interest in the long term is the key to delivering that value.

In today’s buyer-empowered world, businesses increasingly consult their network of peers for recommendations and guidance during their purchasing process. A company’s loyal customers will be a key reason for it to make the shortlist in that network of recommendations.

The goal for every B2B marketer should, therefore, be to build up a stable of loyal customers willing to advocate on behalf of their company.

Conceptually, a customer loyalty programme is pretty straightforward to comprehend. At its simplest level, a customer earns rewards from repeated business in the form of points, discounts or free items and the businesses increase sales. It’s a basic but very powerful strategy.

Your customers are other businesses. They have their own business to run. They're not likely to be looking for all the bells and whistles in your loyalty programme but are likely to be looking to see if you have one. They don't want to evaluate lots of actions that you may reward.

In the past B2B marketers have mostly viewed B2C loyalty and reward programmes as irrelevant, determining instead that businesses won’t respond - and in any case customer retention is the responsibility of those in sales, service and support.